


Don't Hide That

by TheAsexualofSpades



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter honey you gotta stop doing this whole self-sacrifice thing it's not goin well for amyone, Precious Peter Parker, Protective Avengers, Whump, baby spider, momma spider, the violence warning is there just to be safe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:35:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27465043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAsexualofSpades/pseuds/TheAsexualofSpades
Summary: Spider strength is both a blessing and a curse.Peter can hold this building up long enough for the others to get the people out. He can do so he has to do it. He grits his teeth inside the mask until the air squeaks out and still he clenches. Peter knows he’s not supposed to clench his jaw this hard, it fucks up his neck and his shoulders and his whole system, but he has to hold this building up.
Relationships: Peter Parker & Avengers Team, Peter Parker & James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Peter Parker & Natasha Romanov, Peter Parker & Sam Wilson
Comments: 10
Kudos: 397
Collections: Numerous OTPS Infinite Fandoms





	Don't Hide That

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the nonny on tumblr who requested this! I hope it's what you wanted, I had fun with it

**Prompt:** okay i know its an overdone trope but its an overdone trope that i love //so much//- would you ever consider doing one of those "peter tries to hide an injury from a mission and the team finds out and reminds him he can ask for help and also that he's a silly idiot boy" bc those always make me feel so like ?? warm?? cared for?? i just love them so much

* * *

Spider strength is both a blessing and a curse.

Peter can hold this building up long enough for the others to get the people out. He can do so he has to do it. He grits his teeth inside the mask until the air squeaks out and still he clenches. Peter knows he’s not supposed to clench his jaw this hard, it fucks up his neck and his shoulders and his whole system, but he has to hold this building up.

He hears Cap in his ear and he holds on. He sees Sam flying by him and gives him a quick nod.

“Don’t let your head drop, Pete,” Sam grits out as he punches a bad guy square in the face, “you’re doing great. We’re almost done.”

Peter knows better than to try and spare breath to reply.

Rhodey swings by with a swarm of drones after him, sending repulsor blast after repulsor blast into the buzzing mass. Peter shifts just an inch to the left to make sure he gives them enough room. Rhodey glances at him before he has to duck around the corner and vanish again.

Peter grits his teeth and holds on.

How long has he been holding this? Minutes? Seconds? Hours? Does it matter?

_No,_ Peter thinks, holding tighter, _it doesn’t matter. I just gotta—I just gotta keep holding._

His arms burn. His shoulders ache. Something in his left ankle gave out ages—seconds?—ago. He has to hold on. Just hold on. Come on, Spider-Man.

Sweat starts to run into his eyes. He blinks away the salt and holds on. His eyes start to burn. He squeezes them shut, willing them to stop. He wobbles. He forces his eyes back open, peering through the eyes of the mask. Karen’s in his ear, Cap’s in his ear. They aren’t all out yet.

“Spider-Man, status.”

“I got it,” Peter gasps, wobbling a little, “I got the corner. I’m gonna—how many are left?”

“Half a dozen. We’re almost out.”

“Wait, did you just say you have the corner?”

Natasha’s worried voice is enough to send tremors to his knees. No. Not now. He can’t fall.

“I’m fine.”

“Pete—“

“I said I’m _fine,”_ he growls out, restacking his leg and shifting, even as the movement sends a bolt of pain through his left side.

No tenderness. No weakness. Not now. He can’t let go.

He hears more concern coming from his comm but he ignores it, shooting off the vaguest reports and asking questions about _how many more are there? Where are they? Are the others still coming?_

The little twinge of pain in his left side isn’t going anywhere and he shifts again. Trying to figure out if he’s pinched a muscle, if he’s just breathing wrong, why doesn’t he remember how to breathe properly, Sam’s helped him so much with that.

Peter clenches his jaw and holds on.

He shifts again and he hears the sharp _crack._

_Fuck._

Broken ribs are the _worst._

Peter knows if he were to let anything slip, the slightest hiss of breath over the comms, a noise, even a gasp, someone would come to his side in an instant. But then they’d be leaving people in danger. They can’t deal with this. He can.

He holds on, despite the pain.

He scours his mind for every little thing Natasha’s taught him and schools his face into the perfect blank expression. Even beneath the mask it helps. His breathing becomes more controlled, his face barely twitching as the pain doesn’t let up. He has to be stoic. He has to do what needs to be done.

Peter straightens up so he’s not hunched over, even as his muscles groan and his ribs cry out in protest. Unlike the normal fluid grace, this is halting, jittery, and wrapped up in strings and strings of agony. He strains against them all and stands. The smallest gasp escapes his lips and he almost freezes, worried that a tender voice will come over the line and make him shatter. He has to hold on, he has to be strong. He pushes the pain to the back of his head.

“Almost there. Just a few stragglers. Start getting the others to safety.”

The rush of relief is almost enough to make him drop but he won’t. If he doesn’t move, if he hardly breathes, the pain is at a point where it’s not overwhelming. To it fades into the background, with his straining muscles and jilted breaths, no longer governing his every move.

Just a little longer.

Just…a little…longer.

He can do this so he has to.

“Get clear!”

The second he hears Cap’s voice he lurches into motion, tearing out from under the building and slinging a web up as high as he can. He pulls himself free with the instinct overwhelming his system, not enough to stop him from moving properly, until he’s up, up, high away from the building crashing down. His hand brushes something wet, and he looks down—

A dark patch grows on his left side.

Peter can’t tear his eyes away from it.

It’s so much blood.

It’s so much blood.

It’s so much—

— _crash._

Not bothering to look where he was swinging, too distracted by the sight of _all that blood,_ Peter crashes headfirst into a billboard and rolls onto a roof, landing so hard it knocks the wind out of him completely.

The dull pain becomes a fierce agony, flaring up so brightly that it rushes into Peter’s lungs and makes breathing seem impossible. He can’t see. Can’t think. Can’t breathe. Can’t feel anything other than the sharp stabbing in his side. Blearily, he tears off his mask to try and get _some_ air but it’s no use. Everything is fuzzy. He’s on his back, why is he on his back? His arms go up on instinct to defend himself but he can’t move, has barely a kitten’s strength, he’s defenseless—

Is he making noise? He can’t tell, everything’s so fuzzy, he doesn’t know what he’s looking for, he doesn’t know _who_ he’s looking for, did they win? Where are the others? There’s something in his ear but he can’t tell what through the haze. He curls up, trying to hide, trying to make himself as small as possible, but it’s no use, they’ve seen him, he’s gotta get up, he’s gotta go, he’s gotta help, he’s gotta—

It’s no use. He collapses time and time again and every time he hits the ground he hears a crack.

Eventually he can’t move.

There’s something pressing down on top of him. Concrete. Rebar. The roof caves in around him and—

No. No, he’s not there. He’s free, he got out.

Peter blinks. A mixture of blood and spittle and bile pools on the ground in front of him, more dripping bitterly from his lips. The sight of it makes him heave again, more bubbling up and oozing from his mouth. He ends up on all fours, his vision spinning so wildly it makes him retch again.Each one makes his ribs throb harder until his stomach is entirely empty.

It’s over. They’re safe. Right?

He can…he can rest now?

…yeah…yeah that sounds like a good idea.

Peter’s just…he just…he’s just…gonna take a nap…right here.

Right here…yeah, it’s fine…

He passes out.

* * *

Rhodey’s scanning for Peter the second he gets the alert that he’s lost consciousness. He slams the reverse _hard,_ turning back and racing through the buildings, looking for something, anything, where are you, Pete—

_There._

“I got eyes on him,” Rhodey says, snapping open the helmet and racing to his side. He immediately clocks the pool of bile and blood smeared all over Peter and the still-growing stain on his side. “Sam, get over here, now!”

“Oy my way.”

“Come on, Pete,” Rhodey mutters, rolling Peter onto his uninjured side so if he vomits more, he won’t choke himself, “you’re gonna be alright, I promise.”

Peter is so _small,_ and so _young…_ his face is pale and covered with a grisly sheen of sweat, his lips almost white under all the partially congealed blood and spittle. Rhodey’s metal hand lands on his shoulder and the flimsy give of the muscle makes him wince.

“ _Sam!”_

“Here,” Sam says, landing a few feet away and dropping to his knees beside Peter. “I got him. You make sure to get that suit applying pressure.”

“Here?”

“Yeah. We gotta stop the bleeding.”

“Won’t that fuck up his ribs more?”

“His ribs are already fucked, man, we gotta make sure he doesn’t bleed out too.”

Rhodey winces and does as Sam asks as Sam starts running through his medic kit. For a second, this isn’t Peter, he isn’t in a suit of armor, and Sam isn’t Sam. He’s somewhere else, someone in the desert, the smoking wreckage of a plane not too far away.

Then Sam looks at him and calls his name.

“Rhodes, C’mon. You gotta keep him here, you hear me?”

“I hear you.” Rhodey grits his teeth. “Where, here?”

“Yeah. Harder.”

Even unconscious, Peter lets out a hiss. Rhodey winces and looks back up at Sam.

“Harder.”

Rhodey can’t stop himself from full-on grimacing as he presses down, Peter jolting under his hands.

_The jet can’t get here fast enough._

Sam works quickly, his hands steady, doing his best to get the kid stabilized before the jet comes to whisk them back to the compound. They can’t risk carrying him as he is, too much of a risk they’ll do more damage. But their wings and repulsors feel like tantalizing useless hunks of machinery as the fliers crouch there.

“Hang on, Pete,” Sam mutters, “we’ll get you home.”

* * *

Peter blinks his eyes open to the lights that are _way_ too bright. He shuts his eyes and groans, only to gasp when the movement tugs at too many places in his body.

“Peter?”

Peter turns his head as the light behind his lids dims, opening them just enough to see the—

“Guys?” _Wow, does he really sound like that?_ “What’s wrong?”

He licks his lips and tries again.

“Are you—am I—“

_What happened?_ He’d been in the fight, helping, then the explosion had blown out one of the support beams and he’d jumped down without a thought because there were people in there and they needed time to get them out so he’d—

—oh. Right.

Peter’s eyes widen as he takes in the stony gazes of Cap, Mr. Stark, Colonel Rhodes, Black Widow, and Falcon.

“A-are you guys mad?”

Sam curses and Peter flinches as much as his ribs’ll let him.

“I-I’m sorry I couldn’t hold it for longer,” Peter tries, “I’ll do better next time, did we—did you manage to get everyone out?”

“Peter,” Cap says, taking a step forward, “they’re all okay. We managed to save everyone.”

“O-oh,” Peter burbles, sighing into the hospital bed, “that’s…that’s good.”

“Yeah, Pete, it is,” Cap repeats, still coming closer. He reaches out and lays a hand carefully on the bed right next to his head. “But _you’re_ not okay. _You_ almost didn’t make it.”

“…s-sorry.”

“No, Peter,” Cap corrects softly, reaching out to—to…brush his hair back from his face? What? “It’s not something you apologize for.”

“You can apologize for scaring the shit out of me,” comes Mr. Stark’s voice, quickly followed by a _thwack_ and an indignant yelp.

The fingers in his hair make it really hard to focus on anything other than the pleasant buzzing sensation—though that’s probably whatever painkillers they’ve got him on—but still Peter pries his eyes open to stare up at Cap—oh and there’s Colonel Rhodes, and Falcon?

“G-guys?”

“We’re not mad at you, Pete,” Falcon says firmly, “just worried. You could’ve died out there and that building didn’t need you holding it.”

“But I—“ Peter swallows— “I had to hold it.”

“Why?”

Peter frowns at Rhodes. “So you guys could…you know, go in and save people?”

“We can fly,” Rhodes points out, “we could’ve gotten in there. You got hurt, Pete, and we’re not okay with that. You can take care of yourself in a fight.”

“We’re not mad, Baby Spider,” Black Wid—Natasha says, coming up to the bed too, “we’re just worried. You ask us for help next time, hmm?”

Cap—Steve hasn’t stopped stroking his hair and Peter’s having a really hard time keeping his eyes open right now.

“B-but I—“

“Shh,” she soothes, reaching down to trace his cheek, “we’re not. And you’re okay now. You just gotta remember you can ask, right?”

“…you promise you’re not mad?”

Steve huffs a laugh. “The only reason I’m not hugging you right now is that it would hurt. So…” He ruffles Peter’s hair in _just_ the right way and Peter can’t hold back the keen. Sam chuckles.

“We’re not mad, kid. Promise.”

“I…did the breathing technique you suggested.”

“Good. We can work on that when you’re not holding up a building.”

Peter looks around at them. They really don’t look mad, but…

“W-where’s Mr. Stark?”

“I’m here, _bambino._ ”

O-oh. Oh, Mr. Stark isn’t angry. He never calls Peter that when he’s angry.

Weathered fingers slide into his hair next to Steve’s and Peter’s eyes flutter shut. He hears Tony chuckle from somewhere above him.

“Why don’t you sleep this off, _bambino,”_ Tony hushes, “and then we’ll promise we’re not mad again.”

Sleep. Sleep sounds good.

“Silly boy,” he hears Natasha say faintly, “you can always _ask_ for help, you just need to be a little less stubborn about admitting you _need_ it.”

“Don’t scold my baby spider.”

“ _Your_ baby spider?”

“Shh, you’re gonna wake him up!”

“How is this my fault?”

“For the love of god, will you shut the hell up?”

“You shut up!”

Peter drifts off to sleep in the warmth of the bed with the lights dim and two hands tangled in his hair.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, come yell at me on tumblr:
> 
> https://a-small-batch-of-dragons.tumblr.com/


End file.
